The Australian underground contract mining industry has grown from almost nothing 25 years ago to the point today where half the country's underground mines are using contractors to produce their ore and do their development. This growth was driven by the need to change poor industrial relations and work practices in sectors of the industry, along with the needs of many small gold mine owners to preserve their capital by using contractors to do their mining. The industry is dominated by two major privately owned contractors with a number of other publicly and privately owned contractors making up the balance of the market. This paper discusses the important trends in the contract mining industry and the directions it may take in the next few years._x000D_
FORMAL CITATION:Luxford, J, 2005. Future directions in Australian contract mining, in Proceedings Ninth Underground Operators' Conference 2005, pp 3-6 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).